Chapter Five - Conflicts in the Colonies (1675 - 1774)

Section One - Trouble on the Frontier

Colonists' Relations with the Native Americans

• Militia - volunteer army made up of citizens
• Native Amdericans dislike English settlers who push in large numbers onto thier land
• French colonists and Native Americans get along well because their is a mutal respect for hunting

Conflicts with France

• England and France are arch rivals and end up in many wars in the 1600s and 1700s
• Albany Plan of Union - Ben Franklin's suggestion that the colonies assist Britain in its battles against France

The French and Indian War

• English colonists were continually moving onto French Territory in the Mississippi River Valley
• Fort Duquense - French outpost at modern day Pittsburgh; importtant because of its location on three rivers
• Casualities - Killed injured of captured soldiers
• Edward Braddock - Lack of understanding of frontier fighting results in his death by French and Indain troops

The Treaty of Paris (1763)

• Britain won French and Indian War, so it got Canada and all lands east of the Mississippi
• Spain now the only other major European power in North America

Section Two - Consequences of the French and Indian War

The Frontier

• Backcountry - thinly populated area west of most English settlements
• Pioneers - First Europeans to settle on frontier; often had trouble with Native American attacks
• Pioneers begin to settle west of the Mississippi after the war

Conflict in the Ohio River Valley

• Pontiac's Rebellion - Indians attack British forces on the Frontier in Ohio and Michigan
• Constant conflicts with Indians as the English colonists moved west

Proclamation of 1763

• Designed by the British to protect American colonists from Indian attack
• No colonists allowed west of the Appalachian Mountians, No Indians east of them
• Doesn't work because colonists are already living west of the mountains and refuse to move back
• Colonists angered because they feel the British are trying to unfairly control them

Section Three - Trouble over Colonists' Rights

Raising Taxes

• To pay for the French and Indian War debt, the British decide to tax the colonists
• Citizens of Britain paid many taxes, but those in the colonies did not
• Sugar Act (1764) - taxes on sugar and molasses in colonies

Taxation woithout Representation

• Colonists feel that because they did not send a represenative to the English Parliment, they should not be taxed
• Samuel Adams starts the Committees of Correspondence to spread anti-British propaganda around the colonies
• Boycott - Form of protest in which you refuse to buy goods

Stamp Act

• Stamp Act (1765) - taxes on legal documents, dice, playing cards, and newspapers
• Colonists boycott these goods
• Sons/Daughters of Liberty - Samuel Adams' group designed to protest British taxes with violence and propaganda

Repealing the Stamp Act

• Repeal - to remove an act
• Parliament repeals the Stamp Act because of colonial protests in 1766

Section Four - New Taxes and Tensions

The Townshend Acts

• Townshend Acts - taxes on lead, paint,paper,glass,and tea in effort to raise money to pay off the debt from the French and Indian War
• Writs of Assistance - British could search for smuggled goods without a warrant
• Colonists protest by writing letters and attacking homes of customs officials

The Boston Massacre (March 5, 1770)

• Crowd gathers outside the Customs House in Boston
• Britsh guards hit with snowballs and bottles by crowd
• Shots ring out and five colonists were killed
• Sons of Liberty and Sam Adams blame the Brish for the "Massacre" with propaganda
• Propaganda - telling only one side of the story
• Britsh found not guilty of murder and branded as a minor punishment

A Tax on Tea

• Tea Act - Allowed the British East India Tea Company to sell tea directly to the colonists rather than through colonial merchants, lowering the price for the consumer
• Sons of Liberty, many of whom were smuggling tea and did not want the competition, said the Britsh were trying to harm the colonial merchants by putting them out of business
• Boston Tea Party - Sons of Liberty dump British tea into the Boston Harbor to protest the Tea Act

The Intolerable Acts

• Designed to punish the colonists for the Tea Party
• Closed the Boston Harbor, Sent British official to Britain for trails rather than have them in the colonies, and created the Quartering Act
• Quartering Act - allowed British Troops to stay in homes of the colonists